Nutritional impacts of dietary selenium and iodine and their interaction on growth performance, antioxidant capacity and bone quality in Longyan ducklings.

1. This study evaluated the effects of selenium (Se) and iodine (I) supplementation and their interaction on growth performance by antioxidant capacity and bone quality development of ducklings aged from hatch to 7 weeks.2. A total of 288 Longyan duck breeders at the age of 20 weeks were randomly allocated to one of the four treatment groups and fed either a basal control diet 0 mg selenium (Se: SE0); a basal diet supplemented with 0.24 mg/kg Se (SE2); a basal diet 0 mg iodine (I: ID0) or basal diet supplemented with 0.40 mg/kg iodine (ID4). At 31 weeks of age, 192 offsprings from each treatment were randomly allocated to one of the four groups with six replicates containing eight birds.3. Dietary supplementation of Se and Se×I interaction in the maternal diet significantly (p < 0.05) decreased malondialdehyde (MDA) concentration and increased glutathione peroxidase-Px (GSH-Px) activity in SE2/ID0 and SE2/ID4 compared to other groups in the duckling's plasma and liver. Feeding SE2 significantly (p < 0.05) increased plasma total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC) activities compared to the SE0 group.4. Ducks and their offspring fed the ID supplementation increased (p < 0.05) tibial weight, length, frontal diameter of articular cartilage, and tubular diameter of articular cartilage in the ID4 group compared to the ID0 group of the ducklings. Maternal and offspring diets supplemented with ID increased (p < 0.05) collagen X (Col X) protein in the tibial cartilage in the ID4 group compared to the ID0 group of the ducklings.5. The results indicated that supplementation of SE and ID into the breeder and duckling diets increased the antioxidant capacity and bone quality for the growth and development of the ducklings.